PART 4 – Unofficial Flathead Construction
Sunday, September 15
Worship! Breakfast! Laundry! Nothing More!
It is forecast to be a beautiful day and we
considered going to the top of Big Mountain (the ski area) outside of
Whitefish. But….we are tired!!
So….it is a trip to the Whitefish
Presbyterian Church and then breakfast across the street at the Buffalo Café. A great morning!
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| Banner at Whitefish Presby |
The church is an old brick
structure, commonly used for weddings in the area I gathered from the
website. The pastor reminded me slightly
of the minister in Redmond, but the people were extremely friendly and
welcoming. Many very old style stained
glass windows and an intimate feel to the sanctuary. My favorite was the beautiful banner hanging
on a side wall up very high, sided with two smaller ones filled with intricate
flower designs. I wondered if they
changed the side panels seasonally.
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| Buffalo Cafe Sculptures! |
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| Farms along the back roads |
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| Giant metal eagle! |
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| Our shady campsite at LaSalle RV Park |
Laundry, phone calls, and a lot of
reading completed our very ‘busy’ day! I
joined some of the others around a campfire for awhile after dinner. We lost several of the group today: Mike, Val
and Monica, Ove and Barbara, and Gayle all pulled out. Dick and Charlene will leave in the morning
and then it will just be the four of us couples left for the next week. I am so glad Arletta and Carl are staying
another week!
In
the 30’s again at night, but not the hard freezes!
MONDAY, September 15
Hungry Horse Dam and Reservoir
A morning to do a little catch up and
relaxing (even finally do the dishes that are piled high in the sink!) and then
we take off around 11a for Hungry Horse Reservoir action. Dick and Charlene, Pat and Glenn both left
this morning, so the empty slots in the RV park are starting to mount!
The Hungry Horse Dam was completed
in the mid 50’s. It is the 11th
tallest concrete dam built and it IS an impressive sight. The reservoir stretches some 34 miles behind
it, with water that will eventually flow into the Pacific via the Columbia
River. The headwaters are deep
in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, one of the pristine wild spaces in
northern Montana. (Grizzly bear
country!!)
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| Lion Lake |
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| Glory Hole at Hungry Horse Dam |
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| Rick out on the dock |
The Dam Visitor Center,
unfortunately, is closed for the season.
But we are able to walk out along the road over the dam and peer down to
the power plant below, view the four intakes, see the ‘glory hole’ (overflow
basin), and the two huge elevators that run to the bottom of the dam. The mountains that rim the lake are
wild. On the west side, a fire (also in
2003 – just like the big Glacier fires) burned much of the hill, leaving a
scattering of towering larch trees above the new growth of cottonwood, aspen,
and baby larch. The hillside looked
polka dotted with bright yellow dots of foliage change.
We stopped to take pictures of the
beautiful mountains on the east side of the lake and other panorama views! In another week or so, the larch trees are
going to be stunning. We did spy ONE
tree, solid gold, enroute home, but it was tucked down the hillside and
difficult to photograph. We pulled over
to investigate nearly every campground or boat launch. (For the record, Site 12 at Lost Johnny Point
Campground is beautiful AND accessible for our trailer!) |
| Doris Creek enters the lake. |
Once the paved road ended (around
Mile 15) the pot holes hiding in the shadows of the trees made driving much
harder. Rick lasted a few more miles
before turning around! There was no
point – we had NO intention of driving the 115 miles around the lake (100 of
which would be gravel and poor quality!)
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| Doris Creek Camp Hosts |
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| The Deer Lick Saloon in Martin City |
But first, once back out on the
highway, we drove another mile and took the EAST side road through the little
town of Martin City. (Think Sumpter
like!) It was quaint, to say the
least! A couple of saloons that have
good reputations for the locals – Deer Lick Saloon, any one? We drove on this road, which quickly turned
to gravel, down to Abbott Bay – and turned around again!
Back home to enjoy some more of
Bortz’s deer sausage for dinner. I put
it on salad and Rick enjoyed with baked beans.
Quality eating around here! Wrote
postcards and caught up on pictures.
Tomorrow….back to work!
Tuesday, September 16
Drop-in Build Day 1!
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| Sunrise as we drive in to job site. |
Another brisk morning, but the forecast is into the high 70’s!! We woke to the alarm clock today….even
me! I knew I would be in trouble when I
slept until 7:15 yesterday morning!!
But….we got ready in time. The
pressure is off somewhat as we are now officially a “Drop-In Build” – just four
random couples who will show up everyday and sign in on the volunteer
sheet! No devotions, no demand to HAVE
to be there at 8am (even though we were!)
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| Diane wears her 'restored' shirt! |
Rick went to work this morning
finishing up the painting on the upper front of the house – the part he and
Carl got sided last Saturday. He was
finished by lunch and spent the afternoon helping out with the sheetrock inside
Lexie’s house. The upstairs is almost
done, except for closets. All the BIG
walls have to be done first and then the scraps get used in the closets! Rick joined Clint, Diane, and Arletta who had
been working there all day.
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| Rick fixes some sheetrock screws. |
I went back to work with Kathy
installing the last of the ‘forms’ around the perimeter. These are three layers of work, totaling 2” in
depth, that must be right along the level line around the circumference of the
house. They will be used to level the
concrete foundation. It took us until
after lunch to finish, as we encountered odd corners, special cuts, etc. I don’t even want to count how many times I
climbed up out of the foundation ‘pit’ to use the chop saw to cut the boards to
size. Up, down, up, down. Guess it was good exercise because I had lost
a pound when I got to Weight Watchers this afternoon!
Right
after lunch I got stung by a bee or wasp (not sure which!) on the back of my
left arm above the elbow. Ouch! Quick trip down to the truck to get the
Sting-Eze and rub! Not sure I hit the
right spot because it didn’t neutralize as well as it should!
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| We installed the horizontal boards around the upper edge. |
We worked late today – leaving the
site at 3:45. We were trying to get the
foundation ready in time for a 2pm concrete pour tomorrow afternoon. Steve has the inspector scheduled for 1pm, so
we have a lot of work to get done in the morning! Tom has been oiling the boards so the
concrete will release easily. We started
installing the outside edge of the foundation framework at the end of the
day. Will finish in the morning. Sooooo much prep work for the concrete
slab! Steve says he thinks there is more
work to be done in the slab than any other part of the house. Still insulation to be installed before the
final top slab is poured!
I stopped at Dollar Plus enroute
home from WW – they were advertising a 30% clearance sale as the store will be
closing. So much inventory!! I picked up just a couple things.
Dinner around the campfire with
everyone as we ate up the leftover BBQ ribs from Diane’s Saturday night
party. A few salads and Arletta had
chicken and taters to share. We didn’t
bring much as we didn’t have much to offer – Chex Mix!
Just as I came in to review the proposals
for the Program Committee for EOP, my internet died again. Maybe I will go up to the laundry room to
handle the call and have good access. (Hour
and half later, call is done! Whew!)
WEDNESDAY, September 17
Drop In Build Day 2
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| My one picture of Rick...in the closet! |
What an absolutely beautiful day
weather wise! Still a little hazy in the
morning (we heard that we slash or prescribed burning somewhere in the valley),
but blue skies and a few clouds later.
The high was over 80 degrees. We
were joined today by about 6 women (one guy for awhile) from Parkside Credit
Union. Hard workers! Plus we had three local volunteers and an
additional drop-in older woman who came to work. Good to have more because we had a lot of
foundation work to do before 1pm to be ready for the concrete!
Poor Rick….such a pretty day and he
was inside most of it installing sheetrock with Clint and Arletta. They were joined by Ingrid, the additional
drop-in. Good news is that much of the
upstairs of Lexie’s house is sheetrocked.
Still some small pockets to do, but largely done.
I worked all morning, mostly with
Carl and Kathy and Tina, a new local volunteer (found out later she is a
retired CIA agent!) We were installing
the outside foundation boards – harder than it looks! It was dirty work at times as I was crawling
around at the bottom of the trench while rocks cascading down from the edge as
we wrestled the wires into their holes. Then our crew began working on the ‘whalers’ –
the long support boards that hold the walls in place. I stayed ‘topside’ and cut and delivered
boards to order – both 1x4’s and 2x4’s.
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| I helped Steve2 set up this pillar form. |
After lunch (provided by the credit
union!) I had some odd jobs while we finished up and then had to wait nearly a
half hour for the cement to arrive. I
helped clean up the site, transferred boards, covered the siding piles, and
helped Steve2 install the boards that hold the circular forms for the porch
pillars in place.
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| Waiting for the concrete to arrive... I was given a 'hose' job, then switched to photographer! |
The concrete boom truck (with the
huge arm) arrived around 2:45 and TWO mixer trucks shortly after. Steve had everyone planned out for jobs….I
got to be photographer!! We called the
sheetrockers down to watch, but Rick eventually took over a cement job for a
Parkside guy who had to leave. He even
got to level and smooth….not easy within the narrow foundation confines. I started handing some of the ‘J bars’ to be
installed into the top of the concrete as it set, but I didn’t know they were
coated in grease. So….my hands (no
gloves at this point) were a MESS at the end of the day and I had wiped them on
the front of my jeans.
We didn’t leave the site until 4:15,
but Steve was ecstatic that we actually got the concrete ready AND poured
today. We don’t have to feel guilty
about a short day on Saturday now since we’ve worked late for two days!
Showers felt OH so good this
afternoon! Tom was grilling some Polish
Sausages and Rick added four of the Jalapeno Venison sausage we had from Bortz's –
he and Carl really enjoyed them!
Hot! A very casual group dinner
and campfire time. We invited Ingrid to
join us but she didn’t show up.
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| Concrete boom and mixer truck |
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| Rick helps Steve with pour job. |
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| Rick is smoothing out the top. Awkward! |
THURSDAY, September
18
Drop-In Build Day 3
Wow!
What a difference the prescribed burns are making! The whole valley is overcast and smoky again
this morning. No sunrise pictures today
enroute to the job!
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| Rick is still sheet-rocking! |
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| Sheet rock truck arrived at lunch - amazing to watch it loaded through the window! |
The rest of us were outside back in the ‘pit’! Time to UNDO everything we had worked so hard
to DO over the past few days. In others
words, all the foundation supports and framework now needed to be removed. Lots of unscrewing, prying loose, hammering
the ‘shoes’ off, etc. Before break I
mostly moved lumber out of the way as others knocked things loose. We had to clean the boards of concrete and
then stack them out front. Then the base
support had to be removed which was a little more exciting as they were
partially buried in rock and cement! Got
that done before lunch!
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| The 'shoes' for the foundation 'whalers' - I learned so much vocabulary! |
After lunch our crew started removing the main wall boards, which then
had to be edge cleaned, scraped, and reoiled before being matched and stacked
on the Form Trailer (Foundation Equipment).
None of this was light weight! I
also moved all the ‘shoes’ and other metal pieces back down to the
trailer. That was the heaviest load ever
on the wagon – I could hardly make the wheels turns!
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| What a beautiful foundation! |
We stopped right at 2:30 today.
Kathy and Diane had left earlier to go to a toy store in Whitefish as we
wanted to get a gift for Malachi. Lisa
Littlefoot had invited the group to her house for light snacks, a glass of
wine, and foot massages! Ended up only
the gals who got the massage (the guys felt awkward, but we convinced them to
go for Lisa’s sake!). She seemed so
delighted that we came and accepted her offer.
Malachi loved his new magnetic toy
and play dough (good choices Kathy and Diane!) and showed off his new
room with all the penguins! Lisa’s Mom
was there to massage as well. It was a
Win-win: Lisa really wanted to say thank you, but we benefit from seeing the
completed home with furniture all moved in.
Especially neat since these are two of the houses we worked on last
spring.
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| Rick plays with Malachi |
Skies are clearing a little, so maybe the smoke will go away! Not so hot today, however, which was really
nice!
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| Lisa Littledog and her mom |
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| Ginger enjoys her foot massage! |
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| Malachi loves penguins. He would call these HAPPY FEET!!! |
FRIDAY, September 19
Drop-In Build, Day 4
What’s that falling from the
sky? We heard rain during the night and
more this morning as we arrived at the job site. Where did all these clouds come from? But it is WARM – over 60 degrees at the Super
One!
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| Our crew scraps, brooms, and oils the form boards. |
A crew from Starbucks was supposed
to volunteer today, but Steve got the call last night they weren’t coming. So….the muscle we were hoping to have for the
heavy form walls wasn’t there. I guess
we should take it as a compliment that Steve figured we had the muscle for the
job when he assigned myself, Megan, and two new volunteers, Katie and Tamara,
to the job of moving the boards, cleaning them up, oiling them, and stacking on
the form trailer. These are heavy thick
plywood 4x8 foot boards, now saturated with soy oil. But….we worked together as a team (a well-oiled
machine I said!) and almost had the job finished by lunch time. It was, however, HARD work and I was sweating as we hoisted the boards on to the trailer.
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| Ginger cutting foam board |
Our last assignment for the day as a
crew of four was to start applying the insulation on the foundation. Both sides of the foundation are layered with
2” blue foam insulation, glued to the concrete.
Tamara and I cut while Megan and Katie used the liquid glue (in a caulk
gun format) to apply the foam to the wall.
We only finished about 15% of the outside wall before quitting
time.
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| Steve and Genia Tartaglino |
We invited Steve and Genia to Happy
Hour tonight, as well as Megan and the others.
Megan came, delivering the payment check to Leon at the campground
office, Steve and Genia came bearing gifts for the four couples – a little
reminder of Montana (Tamarack Brewery beer, huckleberry taffy, and Montana
Coffee Traders Glacier Blend Coffee.
Really nice of them!
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| Friends around the fire. |
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| Arletta shows us how its done! |
I offered one of my books to Genia
and Steve as a thank you and they took a copy of “Here I Am, Send Me”. Genia also bought my last two packages of
God-text cards!
SATURDAY, September 20
Drop-In Build, Day 5; Big Mountain
What a full day! And a beautiful fall sunshiny day as
well! The build site was busy with a
group of girls from Summit Academy, a team from a Lutheran Church down in
Kalispell, and a few other odd volunteers locally. Steve had to leave at 11am, so he got
everyone going, told a story or two at break time, and was on his way to Butte,
MT, by 11 for try-outs for his Montana Girls Ice Hockey team.
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| Status of foundation by day's end. |
A crew from the church tackled the
insulation of the foundation and they made fast work of it!! (I think they had a building contractor as
their boss and he knew what he was doing!)
Rick and I both worked downstairs at Lexie’s house doing drywall. One of the first things we had to do was
cover up my house blessing on the closet wall under the stairwell! L Ah well! We had a second portion of the wall all
measured and discovered we couldn’t get a 12’ section of panel into the opening
until we moved all the sheetrock stacked up in the way. That led to installing a different wall
first, which had a lot of cuts to make.
The room was a bustle of activity as Steve sent another 4 workers in to
help us! Clint had to redo a section of
stairwell wall he had put up, but it was a good thing as he discovered a light
switch that had been covered up! So….a
good mistake as in correcting it we corrected another.
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| Our sheetrock achievement for the day. |
Anyway….we’ll finish up what we
started on Tuesday morning hopefully!
Lunch was provided by the church and then we all left! No afternoon work today!
We shower and relax for a couple
hours before taking off for Whitefish and Big Mountain/Whitefish Ski Resort
area. We have been invited to dinner at
the condo home of Rich and Kathryn, Habitat volunteers who worked with us last
Wednesday. They live up in The Village
near the lifts on the mountain, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to
combine a trip up the Summit Scenic Lift with our dinner invite.
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| Back road to Whitefish |
The fall colors are starting to
appear throughout the valley. Shades of
golden yellow, orange, and a few reds – especially the huckleberry bushes,
etc. We take the back road up to
Whitefish enjoying the colors along the way and then wind our way up Big
Mountain Rd. to the ski area. The
tickets to the top on the chair (or gondola, but we didn’t opt for that!) are
just $13 round trip, cheaper for seniors but we weren’t old enough to
qualify! Well worth the price! The hillsides were a quilt of green, gold,
red, and orange, laced with white lines of bike trails and hiking trails. The ski area caters to the mountain bikers in
the off season and it is popular. Other
outdoor activities include zip lines, alpine slide, tree-top walks, etc.
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| Mountain bike action |
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| Hillside colors as we ride up the lift. |
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| Panorama to the East from top of Big Mountain. The peaks are Glacier NP |
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| Kathryn and Rich |
This couple moved to the Flathead
Valley two years ago from Washington DC where both of them worked for the
federal government in the transportation and treasury departments. They are quite ‘down to earth’ for two people
in a socioeconomic class more than a step above ourselves! Kathryn is an accomplished hostess and we
were served drinks, hors d’ovres, pasta, chicken parmesan, salad, bread, and
chocolate mousse. She had told Clint, “I’ll
just throw a little pasta together – don’t bring anything!” Wow!
They stay in Whitefish for 6 months of the year, mid July to January,
but are officially residents of The Virgin Islands where they maintain
residency 51% of the time! (January to
July!) Conversation was lively and
fun. We felt very comfortable with them
and look forward to their help again next Thursday at the job site.
Back to wind down and prepare to
hike on Sunday. The weather reports look
much more favorable for a hike up at Logan Pass tomorrow rather than Monday, so it looks like we'll be heading to God's Cathedral tomorrow!
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| Toward Columbia Falls from Big Mountain. Columbia Mt. is the main ridge in the middle. The 'gap' at the left. |
